The weather is beautiful, garden....not so much.

Wonderful puffy white and grey clouds, it almost rained yesterday but never happened. Clouds were going west to east yesterday and the opposite today but still lovely skies.

Wind is still going today but not as much as two days ago. Harbinger of the weather change and my seasonal allergy kicked up as another sign. I was going to water last night but figured if it rained then wouldn't need to. Well, I should have watered because it didn't rain so I had to water this morning. 

Leaves have doubled on the ground due to the winds reminds me of when the Ginkgo trees lose all their leaves within a few days. A wonderful yellow carpet used to cover the street and sidewalk of the neighborhood I lived in during high school. 

This was four days ago when the parrots decided to roost in the trees for the night. They prune leaves and seed balls off to make room and have a clear flight path. Other than their chattering, the occasional thump of a seed ball and the fluttering of leaves falling was the only sounds. 

I checked the potatoes in the bucket and decided that it was time to plant some of them. Only bed I have available with enough sun but even if I get soil later it's still okay. I planted five, two were cuts from a larger spud and the other three were just smaller ones but all of them were rooting. The one in my hand actually had small 'proto-potato' nodes starting already! So yeah definitely tossed that one in there carefully.

These are russets for sure, I don't have any red or golds left in my cupboard or outside.  You can see that I watered a bit before planting them, there's a 'shadow line' from where the water was blocked by the wall of the planter. Yeah. I'm not even being as nice about putting the hose back, just tossing it back in the general direction. 

No pictures but there are four or five romaine coming up, similar amount of cilantro but onions are being slow. I bought some green onions and have 5 of the root ends in water right now and might just cut the ends off the rest and plant them in that bed and the west bed.

I have the cauliflower seeds I could put in the raised bed, radishes and the mixed lettuce. I think the lettuces will be a contender, I don't have the patience or space for the other two. Maybe the radishes too but I NEED A NEW HOSE DANGIT! Or at least a functional watering can with a decent spreader/rose on it.

I can't plant on the west side of that bed due to the hose not being able to hit it. The south bed is total shade and unless I put starter plants in, seeds are not going to grow.

If I am frugal with my Disneyland money and have anything left over I likely will need that for supplemental food.  Given the prices of things I likely won't have much left oh well.

Anyway, garden is as what the garden does. Never the same year to year.

Garden is still there, slowly but sure.

 It is settling into being Fall now. Nights are definitely colder, going to dip into the high 40's in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow and the south bed in the garden is getting no sun at all so none of the seeds have sprouted.

Did I mention I figured out the change in the formatting code for getting pictures parallel again? I just kept trying different combinations of positioning and found it. Yay! Stupid programmers. Oh and that's the same tree different times of the day and different angles. It is almost completely yellow now but in the second picture it's late afternoon so it's more pink/orange due to the sunlight. But you can see that the top of the tree is more yellow and moving to orange while the lower part still has some green. 

I found one leaf on the sidewalk that has the prettiest colors of yellow and red/pink. One of the only ones on the ground and from the trees but then the wind has been blowing a bit.

So I got the cultivator and dug around the soil in the bed just to keep it aerated, I did it again yesterday as well but used my hands.... very black and almost sticky soil which means it's all the broken down compost, I remember seeing similar soil in the bare root beds when they stirred them up after a year of sitting. So I used my hand to spread the perlite out of that corner and mix it in as best I could. I don't know what I'm going to do other than that potato and the cilantro in that bed. I could toss some lettuce seeds and maybe try the radishes again but there's only about two or three inches of soil when it compacts back down again.

Health scare is resolved, nothing major anymore,  other than my knee getting all tweaked which has taken a week and a half for it to recover. One of the reasons why I didn't go down to the garden as often is not wanting to use the stairs when I have to keep my right leg from bending. 

I didn't get any pictures but the cilantro and romaine are coming up in the west bed, I think I saw one lone onion maybe two coming up. Let me tell you, if Santa brings me soil for Christmas I will be so happy. A new hose would be nice as well but that's pushing it, I may get some extra money in December so hopefully I won't need it for actual necessities and manage to get things for my garden.

I really need it to succeed next year. For my own mental health mostly. The world is very depressing right now and I need to be reminded that there are good things I can do in my little corner of the world to make me happy.

A lot has happened and still not much

 The sun is shining, the tank is clean.... or something like that.

Santa Ana's came through yesterday and today so it's windy and clear, very nippy at night and my allergies have kicked in.

Hummingbird was hanging out at the feeder the other day and tried to get a good picture through the kitchen window. Less than professional results of course. And then this morning taking Rocky for his walk, a female was flitting around under the trees and around the pile of leaves and back around. Took me a moment to realize she was taking advantage of gnats and flies collecting in the shade. Made me smile a few moments at least.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got new shoes that are slip on and brown leather, won't show the dirt as badly as the white pair at least. The leaf blower started up at 7:45 this morning and the piles have begun to collect on the grass. The piles would not be so big if not for the gusty winds yesterday and today. No need for the fans or AC at least.

I think I've figured out how to get parallel photos finally! YAY! Meanwhile, before, during and after my decision to yank the tomato bushes. I pulled the last two tomatoes off (and left them on the white rack oops) though they showed signs of spotting and not completely ripe. The smaller left side tomato plant had three small ones and frankly wasn't going to wait for those to ripen. I watered as much as I felt necessary, trying not to crush the single cilantro coming up near the potato. Nothing is coming up in the south bed by the way, it's shaded all the time so if I want something to grow there I'll have to put plants in.

Just some fall color, it doesn't show how much they are being whipped around by the wind though. Hoping to get the short video uploaded of that action. Wind just started up again and it's a wonderful feeling but at the same time it is a very dry wind. 

In other news, there was a canyon fire across the freeway and near the university. Not even remotely close to the boys school,but got some good views of the smoke cloud from the park. It could have been very bad if the wind had been as bad as it is today as there were homes all around the rim of the canyon it started in. They got it out in a matter of a few hours thankfully with the help of a water tank chopper going to the nearby lake. Caused a serious traffic snarl and my normal twenty minute drive from the school to their place was almost an hour.

Life goes on, garden will be what it is for a while. Financial situation is not going to improve on it's own so have to make do with what I've got.

Lovely true fall weather

Short post today, not much to take pictures of except for a change in the weather. It drizzled this morning and yesterday, large puffy white and grey clouds are drifting under a medium blue sky. Very breezy, almost windy which is, of course, the harbinger of weather change. 

The last of the tomatoes still hanging on, not going to pull those until I can get more soil or I'll be looking at a mostly empty bed for months. On the plus side, that potato I transferred there has surfaced! Another reason to wait until I have soil is so I can bury that sprout as it grows.

The lemon bush is flowering like crazy, I chanced on Layla clipping some of her herbs (she let me have a good size clump of thyme) and she said she sprinkled some fertilizer over it so it was under the branches. Apparently the lady that feels that is her bush told her only fertilize once a year. I then educated her on following the directions on the package she has rather than what someone else has told her. It's thriving but also has a lot of new growth with leafminer which I also told her what it was and not to worry about it.

And the leaves are falling from the liquid amber tree. Singular because the rest of them haven't started to change color and are still losing leaves to the caterpillars.

The picture on the left is the ash tree over the fence that shades where we park. It has been losing leaves like is usually does and then I noticed what looks like a nest. A big nest. Or a huge collection of leaves caught in the branches. I heard one of the hawks this morning fly by but that doesn't seem like a prime location for a hawk nest. Too many branches close by and not a good look out spot. No way of knowing for sure as I don't have a telephoto lens and camera or binoculars to get a closer look. And another view of the fall coloring on the tree, evening sun lighting up the yellowing leaves.

I love fall and spring best of all.

Not techinically 'hot' but AC is on.

 It's 'only' 85 today but it multiplies a bit inside the apartment and then add to that running the stove. So yeah, it's nice in the shade outside but not tolerable in the sun.

Due to parking issues I had to take a spot down the street a bit and these were the only flowers on the giant rose bush. Lots of hips evident and was tempted to take some but didn't have luck last time so unless I am really dedicated will leave them on the bushes.

 Roses from our complex, looking pitiful but still are nice to see. Just so disheartening to see garden areas like the residents, 'aging in place' as they say. Only a matter of time before they finally give out and then what? Given the lack of care and funds they certainly aren't going to be planting more.

 

 

 

 

 

 And as I've mentioned before, blogger formatting has gone down the drain. No way of fixing it at this point so sorry for the disjointed placement of text and photos.

 Left the onion skins and outer leaves in the raised bed, why not, not much else going on and the tomatoes are languishing with long distance watering and lack of nutrients. A few more days and will pull those last fruit and the plants. In the other picture, it's hard to see but there's two tiny onion seedlings attempting to grow. I watered as lightly as I could yesterday when I planted more seeds in the west bed.

I swapped netting cover from the other bed because this one was deeper and needed more coverage. You'll notice in the lower left picture, I pulled the jalapeño but left the oregano. Will see how all that grows since I dumped all the compost in there. Still needs another two inches of soil but it's better than it was before. AND I didn't plant any more nightshade family in that bed like potatoes because it's not deep enough. The lines were made by the cultivator dragging it inverted across the soil. I then sprinkled best I could the different seeds and didn't even cover them, just watered really well and any seeds I could see, like the cilantro, after that I covered up. I put way more romaine in that spot than needed, will see how much actually grows without any fertilizer other than the compost.

If I ever get the money to put more soil in the raised bed it will go to adding another three or four bags of soil. THEN I can plan another round of lettuce, onions and maybe some potatoes.

That's all for today, oh yeah, except for a lizard sighting.

Rocky totally did not see it but I luckily was able to get a photo, poor thing ran up the wall and thought it could hide up in the eaves but there wasn't any room. Yay for lizards again! It was small enough I wonder if it's one of the youngsters I saw a few months ago.

That's it for now.
 

Small changes

 Weather is still warm/hot daytime and cools down to fall temps at night. I think it was in the low 50's this morning when I woke up. Still dry air though, not a cloud in the sky and humidity is in the low popcorn percentage.

First Fall color on the tree! HA! That's always the first tree to start coloring in the fall, the other trees are still incredibly damaged from the caterpillars and saw more frass and stems on the sidewalk today.

I decided to cut back and pull the tomatillos, doing so carefully as I could but I think Manny really is gone. I kept the jalapeño since there were two fruit on it and yanked the poblano. That photo on the right is me pulling up the larger plant with a rootball at least 18" across but shallow. Shook off as much dirt as possible then did the same with the other plant.

These were some hefty roots but not from any of my plants. They were coming from the back, in the direction of the building. Nothing has really grown there other than weeds in my time working that bed. Only thing I can think of is leftover roots from the aloe, but these roots are live. 

I chopped up the tomatillo and threw the cuttings behind the bed, compost buckets are overloaded.You can see the shade line has shifted dramatically now, this was around noon I think. I held off watering because I had watered the evening before and it was still very damp.

I dumped the entire bucket of compost in the bed and it's still not enough but it helps. Used the cultivator to get it all mixed and will probably use the last of the compost in the crate as well. Debating on whether to put it in this bed or the now fully shaded south bed. Which nothing is growing right now due to watering issues and it's full shade.

Went back in the evening and watered it in really well and then put the chicken wire over it just in case. Still no new hose. Waiting for the last two or three tomatoes to ripen a bit more before I rip those out but decided I was too impatient to keep the onions any longer.

They should have been much bigger by now but oh well. I just don't have the space or patience to grow onions and garlic. If I had a bed totally dedicated to onions and potatoes I'd do that. I chopped up the tops and put them in the freezer and kept some of the neck on the bulbs and put those in a bag in the fridge. 

I don't think I'm going to do anything with the tomatillos I have in the fridge and elsewhere. They are not to size, I don't have the energy to roast them and frankly, purple salsa....does not sound appetizing. So this was a test run for next year when I hope to plant the green ones. 

Now then... I can't plant anything in the raised bed until I get  more soil. Unless I get a gift card for garden supplies that may never happen. Next month is chock full of other more important things I need. Shoes and pants are top of the list and a possible cost for my procedure this Monday, oh yes and eyeglasses for me. 

Gardening is for people with the space, time and money to spend on it as a full time hobby. Much like trying to make money with my jewelry, it's just piddling around for my own enjoyment.